The present invention relates to a sheet-shaped medium, a method and an apparatus for the determination of genuineness or counterfeitness of the sheet-shaped medium, an apparatus for issuing a certificate, a method for the determination of soundness of the sheet-shaped medium, and a method for the verification of data of the sheet-shaped medium. More specifically, the present invention relates to the medium, the methods and the apparatuses using a contactless IC chip.
In a service system such as health insurance, automobile physical damage insurance and travel insurance, a user has been certified his eligibility for the membership of the service by presenting a paper certificate. A subscriber of health insurance can obtain the health insurance service (i.e., medical service) by possessing a health insurance certificate. A paper money (bill) or a merchandise coupon is considered as a kind of certificate which has a monetary value for exchanging with a product or service. Thus, hitherto, certificates for which countermeasures against counterfeiting using printing technology are provided have been used for obtaining various types of services.
A facility of service which manages the overall service system have executed a certificate-based management of the service system. After receiving some compensation from a user, the facility of service gives a certificate which certifies the right of use of the service to the user. The user then presents or transfers the certificate to a facility to execute service which actually executes the service to thereby obtain the service. In some cases, the facility of service and the facility to execute service are same as each other, and in the other cases, they are different from each other. One example of the service in which the facility of service and the facility to execute service are same is a transportation system using a passenger ticket. A railway company or the like issues a certificate such as a passenger ticket or a commuter pass to a user and provides the transportation service only to a user who carries the certificate. One example of the service in which the facility of service and the facility to execute service are different is a health insurance, in which the facility of service is a health insurance society and the facility to execute service is a medical institution.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 11-277963 discloses a method for attaching a contactless IC chip onto an admission ticket and writing data which is identical as the data printed on the ticket to the IC chip.